American global supremacy is not about to be challenged by China's tinkering with aircraft-carriers.
The government would carry on acting like a tinkering housekeeper with a habit of pinching loose change.
Masking of a non-metaphorical kind is a different matter, its significance transcending an art historian's tinkering with chance effects of chronology and national origin.
An analogy would be with designer babies - instead of tinkering with DNA to get a perfect child, a scientists might tinker with the laws of physics to get a perfect universe.
Stop tinkering with that clock and take it to the repair shop.
In 2007 the government announced laudable plans to align the systems better (though its own subsequent tinkering undermined them).
Photos, toys, figurines and other items can make our desks seem more homely, but also have the potential to trigger day-dreaming sessions and tinkering.
In his quest to unveil the varying shapes, he is constantly tinkering with his experiment.
He spent his time roughhousing with his boxer pup, tinkering with his truck, and noodling on his guitar (he'd learned to drive again and to pick out tunes).
The upshot of all this tinkering is a trout that has twice the overall muscle mass of its traditional counterparts.
It also frees up more spectrum for tinkering on unlicensed space.
All this adds up to slight tinkering, rather than the kind of retreat from multiculturalism seen in parts of Europe, or America's harder line against illegal immigration.
In peacetime contractors and civil servants can get away with tinkering for years with the design of a new gun, but quicker results are needed when soldiers are getting shot at.
